There are many theories that seek to clarify the relationship between our offline existence and whatever it is we are doing online. I say “whatever” not to be flippant, but because there is a great deal of debate about the ontological, conceptual,and hermeneutic ramifications of online activity. How much of ourselves is represented in our Skyrim characters? Is retweeting an #ows rally location a political act? How is access to the Internet related to free speech? These are questions that some of the greatest minds of our day are contemplating. I know some equally smart people that would throw up their hands in frustration at even considering these topics as worthy of research and critical analysis. Regardless of whether or not you think it is worth pondering these questions, people all over the world are engaging in something when they post a Facebook status or check in to a coffee shop on Foursquare. In his Defending and Clarifying the Term Augmented Reality, Nathan described how our relationship to these sorts of digital Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) fits in with our historial relationship to technology: “technology has always augmented reality, be it in pre-electronic times (e.g., architecture or language as technologies) or how those offline are still impacted by the online (e.g., third-world victims of our e-waste or the fact that your Facebook presence influences your behavior even when logged off).” I have argued elsewhere that, even if ICTs mark a fundamental shift in our relationship to technology, it is only another wave in a constantly evolving relationship to our own understanding of technological progress. I am going through this (hyperlinked) summary of many of this blog’s larger arguments because 1) we have been growing in readership, and 2) we are embarking on a new, ongoing, project to situate Augmented Reality (AR) amongst other theories of society’s relationship to technology. Today I want to introduce Actor Network Theory (ANT).

ANT is an ongoing project that seeks to radically transform how social scientists talk about society’s relationship to technology and other nonhuman actors. There are three major authors that write under the banner of Actor Network Theory: Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law. Law describes ANT as,

…a disparate family of material-semiotic tools, sensibilities and methods of analysis that treat everything in the social and natural worlds as a continuously generated effect of the webs of relations within which they are located. It assumes that nothing has reality or form outside the enactment of those relations. Its studies explore and characterise the webs and the practices that carry them.(Law 2009).

Essentially, ANT describes human and nonhuman “actants” (the preferred term of ANT writers, since “actor” is mostly used to talk about the roles of humans) with the same language, and grants them equal amounts of agency within “webs” or “actor-networks.” Anthrax spores, Portuguese navigators, car batteries, Thomas Edison, the Renault Car Company, and scallops are all given equal treatment as nodal points within an actor-network. ANT is an extremely effective tool for describing the processes by which inventions and technological systems come into being, or fail to materialize. If a new technology is mature through the various stages of innovation, its inventors must secure the cooperation of potential users, as well as the various components of the device. A few weeks ago, I wrote about my personal experiences in getting wifi to work in #occupyalbany. If I wanted to use ANT to describe the same thing I might write the following:

After several hours, the IT working group resolves that 4G hotspots will not cooperate with their encampment. The 4G signal refuses to visit the park with the same regularity as the activists. Without the 4G signal, those in the park are unable to reach their fellow activists, computers, protest signs, and supplies located throughout the Hudson Valley region. The IT working group decides instead, to project a wireless signal from a nearby apartment into the park. They devise an assemblage of signal repeaters and routers that will provide a more reliable stream of data that will show up on time to general assemblies, and in sufficient numbers. The working group believes that the attendance of broadband Internet will allow the geographically and temporally dispersed occupiers to be enrolled within the larger actor-network of Occupy Albany. This increased attendance by activists, broadband connections, and networking hardware, according to the facilitation working group, will lend more authority to the decisions that come out of the GA and keep the occupation going through the winter.

You will note that I use the same language to describe both human and nonhuman entities. I describe the GA as attended by not just people, but 4G signals and wifi hardware. The relationships between all of these things, the actor-network, is what’s under investigation. The actants are simply constituent nodes that facilitate a larger functioning. If the occupation does not last through winter, an ANT theorist could blame the inability of the IT working group to enroll sufficient broadband connections that facilitate at-home GA attendance.

Latour's Reassembling the Social (2009) by Oxford Press

Actor Network Theory has received its fair share of criticism. Sandra Harding has criticized ANT for dismissing such basic social factors as race, class, gender, and postcolonialism. By ignoring these basic categories of social science, ANT is incapable of challenging the power of racism, oligarchy, patriarchy, or eurocentrism, respectively. David Bloor (1999) and Sal Restivo (2010) object on similar grounds, noting that ANT’s vocabulary and analytical tools cannot challenge power structures, it can only describe them. They also openly question whether or not ANT should even be called a social theory at all.

This very basic introduction to Actor Network Theory serves as the launch point for a much longer discussion of Augmented Reality’s relationship to Actor Network Theory. I hope this post gives you the ability to do your own comparison of ANT and AR before we tackle the subject ourselves. My next post will focus on ANT and AR’s different historical accounts of Western society’s relationship to technology. While Latour claims “We Have Never Been Modern” we at Cyborgology claim “we have always been augmented.” I will summarize both of these arguments to the best of my ability and make the case for AR over ANT.

Comments 88

Bon — December 2, 2011

great post - enjoyed the ANT lens on #occupy and am looking forward to the comparison. i find that the work that i'm doing on identity and practices seems to benefit from both ANT and AR perspectives...trying to account for agency of objects and for power without making a dualist separation between online and off...it hurts my head. but it sure is interesting.

Dan Greene — December 3, 2011

Great intro to ANT David, really liked it. Some people who work more on affect are tying to solve the power critiques you mentioned above, Jane Bennet's "Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things" especially comes to mind. I'd love to hear more about how augmented reality perspectives influence your data collection for ANT, especially in comparison to the graphaholicism we see in a lot of HCI, informatics or big data disciplines that use social network analysis. How does ANT help you gather doing, speaking data, instead of a stack of numbers that need to be massaged into something meaningful by the social scientist?

genemorrow — December 9, 2011

Ha! Brilliant!

The lens offered by the ANT descriptions is really refreshing. I am curious whether identity issues could be rolled in as attribute actants, as being present With the person... I will definitely check out Latour's book and see what I think after reading it.

I am really looking forward to seeing the post working to interface ANT and AR. My mind is already buzzing with possibilities! Or are the possibilities visiting with my mind with increasing frequency?

We Have Never Been Actor Network Theorists » Cyborgology — December 15, 2011

[...] weeks ago, I wrote a Brief Summary of Actor Network Theory. I ended it by saying, My next post will focus on ANT and AR’s different historical accounts [...]

The Beast of Kandahar » Cyborgology — December 21, 2011

[...] of doing that right now. Not because I have deadlines for papers coming up, or because I actually promised that my next post was going to be about Actor Network Theory. Its because… [...]

[...] between the social and the technical; the cultural and the natural. I don’t want to get into actor network theory, so lets just leave it at this: Our technologies are social-relations-made-material. What our [...]

loubie79 — May 25, 2013

Brilliant. It's interesting to read the criticisms as I'm using ANT as a way of creating comparative studies in material culture and I've seen it used in identity politics too. I'll look into those writers a bit more. Looking forward to reading future posts!

| Coco Loco — October 8, 2013

[...] For more insight into the theory, take a look at this summary [...]

[…] have written on ANT before on this blog and most of the major criticisms I catalog are not mentioned here. Namely, the work of Sandra […]

An Extremely Brief History of Science and Technology Studies » Cyborgology — July 30, 2014

[…] theory developed with fellow ANT adherents Michel Callon and John Law. There are lots of good critiques of ANT, most of which point out that even if the fundamental ontology between society and nature is […]

[…] Essentially, the notion of the actor-network can be seen as a constant project seeking to transform the relationship between technology and additional nonhuman actors, expressed again through cyberology (http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/12/02/a-brief-summary-of-actor-network-theory/). […]

[…] architecture or language as technologies) or how those offline are still impacted by the online” (http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/12/02/a-brief-summary-of-actor-network-theory/). This supports how an actor is more than just an entity as it takes into account the natural and […]

Actor Network Theory – Assemblages | z3460554unsw — August 19, 2014

[…] are blurred by three principles; agnosticism, general symmetry, and free association. According to “A Brief Summary of Actor Network Theory”, by David Banks, these principles that transcend the distinctions of the technological and social, give definition […]

[…] The ANT theory can be described as a “material-semiotic” method; meaning that it “maps relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and semiotic (between concepts) (Wikipedia). It assigns equal positions to social and technological positions, treating human and non-human “actants” as having the same amount of agency within webs/actor networks (Banks 2011). […]

Week 5 | graemes2090blog — August 25, 2014

[…] I think this relationship is one in which two all the factors drive each other. As human actants develop it forces the nonhuman actants to develop along with it because of the tied relationship (Banks, 2011). There is an expression which says “necessity drives innovation” and I think this proves that in order for the Actor Network Theory to continue its existence both sets of actants need to co-develop. The following quote from David Banks reinforces my point, “ANT is an extremely effective tool for describing the processes by which inventions and technological systems come into being, or fail to materialize” (http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/12/02/a-brief-summary-of-actor-network-theory/). […]

Wk 4: Trying to Assemble ANTs | peaches & penumbras — August 26, 2014

[…] Actor Network Theory (ANT) is society’s relationship to technology and other nonhuman actor (Banks, 2011). Put simply, ANT is the theory that “actants”, human and nonhuman, both possess the same level of agency to make up a network. The ANT model tries to describe how these nonhuman and human parts come together and thereby form new ways that society works. For example, if we take an iPad, the nonhuman parts would be metal, plastic, glass, computer, computer programs etc. Human elements would be designers, users, programmers, factory workers etc. What ANT says it that all these elements are equal and when they come together create meaning. So that the ipad, without the human programming or human to use it, would not be properly functioning and on the reverse side, if the glass or battery were to break, it would therefore not properly function. Without all elements coexisting and working together, the purpose or object or task, would be nonexistent. […]

About Cyborgology

We live in a cyborg society. Technology has infiltrated the most fundamental aspects of our lives: social organization, the body, even our self-concepts. This blog chronicles our new, augmented reality.